E-lert / Cyberavis is a weekly alerting service commissioned for CARL Directors. Coverage is principally: research, innovation, scholarly publishing, scholarly communication, scholarly journals, electronic journals, copyright and access to published government information.
E-lert / Cyberavis est un service de signalement hebdomadaire à l'intention des membres de l'ABRC. Il porte principalement sur les domaines suivants: recherche, innovation, édition savante, communication savante, périodiques savants, périodiques électroniques, droit d’auteur et accès aux informations gouvernementales rendues publiques.
NEWS / NOUVELLES
House Industry Committee to examine key aspects of S&T
RE$EARCH MONEY, Volume 22, Number 5, March 27, 2008
The House of Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology will be examining four key aspects of science and technology in Canada and plans to release a study later this year. It will hear from a number of witnesses from a variety of sectors and regions across Canada. While the majority of sessions will be held in Ottawa, there will be a road show component. The Committee is also accepting briefs on science advice to government, commercialization, venture capital and intellectual property, federally funded research performed in government and higher education and big science projects and Canada's position in global S&T.
Innovative ICT project may turn to Ontario for support after failing to secure funding from new federal commercialization program
RE$EARCH MONEY, Volume 22, Number 5, March 27, 2008
The backers of an industry-university consortium designed to position Canada as a leader in the rapidly evolving field of communications-enabled applications (CEA) are crying foul after their application was rejected in a recent competition for the new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program. The proposal to establish the Canadian Centre for Communications-Enabled Applications Across Any Network (CEA3N) was not among the 11 successful CECR applicants, recently launched by the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program.
University of Waterloo and Stratford celebrate key milestones in plans for university campus
March 27, 2008
The University of Waterloo and the City of Stratford are celebrating key milestones in their effort to develop a UW campus specializing in digital media and global business in Stratford. In the budget presented in the Ontario legislature, the provincial government pledged $10 million to the University of Waterloo to open the new digital media institute in Stratford. Open Text Corporation will drive private sector donations, pledging funds, technology and services, plus the participation of the company's executives and thought leaders as contributing faculty, sharing their experience in the classroom. This strategic investment and support will allow UW to create the Open Text Centre for Digital Media Research. The centre will see researchers and students from around the world immersed in digital media applications and will forge a path for commercialization efforts in this fast-paced sector.
http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4950
Society’s quiet heroes
The Ottawa Citizen, March 26, 2008
Ian E. Wilson, Canada’s chief librarian and archivist, has just been elected president of the International Council on Archives, an organization that promotes the preservation of the world’s archival heritage. Mr. Wilson, who became the country’s first national librarian and archivist in 2004 (after the two roles were merged), has also served as archivist for Ontario, Saskatchewan and Queen’s University. His appointment is a reminder that our past isn’t just preserved as a matter of course. It is a conscious and often difficult process to make sure the letters, documents and things that combine to create a national memory are preserved in the national archives, a kind of climate-controlled attic of the nation. Preserving our past is particularly important for a country as young as Canada whose citizens sometimes feel we have little past to speak of.
Sloan Foundation to Give Wikipedia $3M
Brian Bergstein
Associated Press, March 26, 2008
The nonprofit group behind Wikipedia, the mammoth Internet encyclopedia built by volunteers, is getting its largest donation ever — $3 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The award, to come in $1 million installments over each of the next three years, will help the Wikimedia Foundation become more financially secure as it hires more staff and seeks to improve the quality and reach of Wikipedia content, foundation leaders said. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is now the seventh-most popular Web site in the U.S., according to comScore Inc.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i8x-wlh7nMm12x_kVQ6MZxrYWK9QD8VKMV1G0
Minister Clement Announces Appointment of President to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
March 20, 2008
The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Health, announced the appointment of Dr. Alain Beaudet as President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), effective July 1, 2008. Throughout his career, Dr. Beaudet has received numerous grants and distinctions, served on a number of health and research related committees both in Canada and internationally, and has published extensively in leading academic journals.
http://www.cihr.ca/e/35992.html
ARTICLES
Coordination, alignment key to cluster growth
David Wolfe
RE$EARCH MONEY, Volume 22, Number 5, March 27, 2008
Over the past 30 years, Canada's approach to innovation policy has suffered from a number of chronic shortcomings. We have been obsessed with the crafting of new strategies at the expense of persevering in the implementation of existing ones. We've failed to distinguish between S&T and innovation strategies. And perhaps most seriously for a highly regionalized and federalized country, we have failed to integrate national strategies with provincial and regional initiatives. This has occurred despite the growing body of research pointing to the importance of strategies to enhance the linkages between institutional components of the innovation system at both national and regional levels (R$, January 21/08).
Médias - Tendances américaines
Paul Cauchon
Le Devoir, 25 mars 2008
Internet permet une plus grande démocratisation de l'information? Pourtant, aux États-Unis, c'est la consommation des médias traditionnels qui prévaut sur la grande toile. Les blogues, eux, attirent un auditoire plus réduit que prévu, et le journalisme citoyen ne tient pas ses promesses. Quant à la couverture journalistique en soi, elle semble rétrécir dans les grands médias. Une couverture journalistique qui, de façon générale, laisse de côté plusieurs enjeux majeurs concernant l'éducation, les relations raciales, la religion, le transport, le contrôle des armes et le bien-être social, entre autres.
http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/03/25/181956.html
Free and Open Source options for creating database-driven subject guides
Edward M. Corrado and Kathryn A. Frederick
The Code4Lib Journal, Issue 2, March 24, 2008
This article reviews available cost-effective options libraries have for updating and maintaining pathfinders such as subject guides and course pages. The paper discusses many of the available options, from the standpoint of a mid-sized academic library which is evaluating alternatives to static-HTML subject guides. Static HTML guides, while useful, have proven difficult and time-consuming to maintain. The article includes a discussion of open source database-driven solutions (such as SubjectsPlus, LibData, Research Guide, and Library Course Builder), LibGuides, Wikis, and social tagging sites like del.icio.us. Both the functionality and the relative strengths and weaknessess of each of these options are discussed.
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/47
Help! A simple method for getting back-up help to the reference desk
Ken Furuta and Michelle Potter
The Code4Lib Journal, Issue 2, March 24, 2008
Using the “net send” command, native to Windows XP, librarians at the University of California, Riverside created a “help button” for the reference desk. The simple script file sends a message to librarians’ workstations in their offices and logs the date and time of use. This paper describes that program.
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/45
The battle for Wikipedia’s soul
The Economist, March 6, 2008
IT IS the biggest encyclopedia in history and the most successful example of “user-generated content” on the internet, with over 9m articles in 250 languages contributed by volunteers collaborating online. But Wikipedia is facing an identity crisis as it is torn between two alternative futures. It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between “inclusionists”, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and “deletionists” who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries.
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
Health Research Funding Agencies’ Support and Promotion of Knowledge Translation: An International Study
Jacqueline M.Tetroe et al
The Milbank Quarterly, Volume 86, Number 1, 2008
The process of knowledge translation (KT) in health research depends on the activities of a wide range of actors, including health professionals, researchers, the public, policymakers, and research funders. Little is known, however, about health research funding agencies’ support and promotion of KT. Semistructured interviews were conducted with a sample of key informants from applied health funding agencies identified by the investigators. The interviews were supplemented with information from the agencies’ websites. The final coding was derived from an iterative thematic analysis.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2007.00515.x?cookieSet=1
Best Practices for Scientific Data Stewardship
The Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) Working Group on Best Practices has opened a website site for professional data managers to exchange information and develop community best practices for data management. The rapid growth in the volume of scientific and technical data has led to unprecedented challenges in data and information management. These data have also led to unprecedented opportunities to gain new understanding of geophysical and related economic and social processes.
http://www.sciencedatastewardship.org/
College Information Literacy Efforts Benchmarks
Primary Research Group, April 2008
College Information Literacy Efforts Benchmarks presents the results of an information literacy higher education benchmarking study. More than 110 colleges from the United States and Canada participated in the study; data is broken out by size and type of college, for public and private colleges, for US and Canadian colleges, and even by number of in-class instructional sessions given. The 175 page study presents an enormous wealth of often completely unique statistics, including data on: use of library personnel for instruction, instructional work load, change in number of presentations or classes, assessment of skill level of students in the following areas: Boolean searching, evaluation of website information credibility, recognition of plagiarism, use of the online library catalog, use of search engines, use of periodicals databases, and use of eBook collections.
http://www.primaryresearch.com/2008031233-Libraries--Information-Science.html
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
2008 BC Library Conference: Off the Shelf and Out of the Box
British Columbia Library Association
Richmond, BC, April 17 - 19, 2008
Libraries are centres of innovation and creativity. To the uninitiated that phrase might cause an arched eyebrow. To those of us “in the know”, however, it is as much a statement of fact as any that guides the profession. Some of the sessions to be offered: OJS [Open Journal Systems] in a Nutshell, Teach Your Library New Tricks: Encouraging Innovation in Established Organizations, Get in the Game: Creative Uses for Multimedia in an Academic Library, and many others.
http://www.bcla.bc.ca/2008%20Conference/default.aspx
74e Congrès et Assemblée Générale de l’IFLA: Bibliothèques sans frontières : naviguer vers une compréhension globale
Québec, Canada, 10-15 août 2008
Cette année, le Congrès se réunit autour du thème des « Bibliothèques sans frontières : naviguer vers une compréhension mondiale ». Le Québec et le Canada constituent un réel carrefour de peuples et de traditions. Les composantes autochtone, française, anglaise et multiculturelle de notre patrimoine fort divers influencent le développement du Canada et ses relations avec le reste du monde. Les participants auront l’opportunité d’examiner les méthodes novatrices qu’emploient nos archives et nos bibliothèques pour desservir une multiplicité d’usagers. Les programmes parrainés par les sections professionnelles de l’IFLA font aussi la part belle aux activités et services des bibliothèques dans un monde sans frontières, car aujourd’hui, l’information se trouve partout, accessible par des moyens impensables voilà seulement
quelques décennies.
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/xpress1-fr-2008.pdf
Diego Argáez
Research Officer / Agent de recherche
Canadian Association of Research Libraries / Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada
Room / Pièce 238, Pavillon Morisset Hall, 65 University Private
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 9A5
Phone / Téléphone : (613) 562-5800 ext. 2427
Fax / Télécopieur : (613) 562-5195
E-mail / Courriel : ac.awattou|oprlrac#ac.awattou|oprlrac
www.carl-abrc.ca
